


mine, all mine

by jdphoenix



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Episode: s03e05 4722 Hours, F/M, Soulmate-Identifying Timers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-23
Updated: 2015-11-23
Packaged: 2018-05-02 23:34:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5268074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdphoenix/pseuds/jdphoenix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jemma's soulmate died when she was fourteen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	mine, all mine

“I feel like I should be feeling guilty,” Jemma says. She holds up a t-shirt. It’s several sizes too large for her, but definitely too small for Will. He welcomed her to Brubaker’s belongings when she first arrived, as he was the smallest of the original survey team, but she was always so determined to get home, she refused to even _think_ of looking through them. Not much point in putting it off any longer though.

“Not like he’s gonna use them,” Will says. He’s busy trying to break into what she is sure is a rock but he swears is secretly some kind of magic, treeless fruit that he found amid a whole bunch of actual rocks.

“Not about _that_ ,” she says. Though she does, a little; it’s strange hunting through a dead man’s clothes for which will fit her best. She lowers the shirt to her lap. “I mean about sleeping with another woman’s soulmate.”

The issue has occurred to her before. Not about Will though, about _Fitz_. His soulmate wants nothing to do with him, is very happy with a man of her own choosing. It’s a more widely accepted choice these days among those who still have matches living, but Jemma herself could never imagine making it. It’s likely part of why it took her a whole year to decide to do so much as _try_ with Fitz. Even setting aside all of her other reservations, she doesn’t think she would ever have been able to completely shake the guilt of taking him while his soulmate was still out there, or the fear of one day losing him to her.

Will sets aside the sharpened stone he’s been striking the supposed fruit with and studies her carefully.

“I mean,” she says, picking at the collar of the shirt, “there are, naturally, extenuating circumstances, but still.”

“Jemma-”

“Is it different?” she asks, suddenly sorry she ever brought it up at all. Bringing it around to the science of the matter seems a safe way of diffusing the tension she’s injected into the conversation. “The sex, I mean? Does it- Was it better with her?” She thinks she might actually do a fair job of keeping the question relatively level.

Will doesn’t answer. He nods to the black band she’s worn over her wrist for half her life. “What happened?”

She fingers the fabric self-consciously. “He died. When I was fourteen.” She pastes on a smile. “But I’d never even met him - there was still more than a decade left on the countdown - so it’s not as bad as it seems, really.”

It was worse. She was on the way to a lecture on stellar mechanics when it happened. She’ll never know if it was dumb luck or the shock of the change that drew her eye to her wrist, but seeing those red numbers… She was only _fourteen_.

Bad enough being fourteen and at university. She was used to enduring stares due to her intellectual prowess - looks full of curiosity and judgment and probing - but that had not at all served to prepare her for how the stares _changed_. The pity was enough to make her want to scream some days and wearing the black mourning band did little to stop them.

It became easier once she entered SHIELD. Black bands were more prevalent there - either to hide the red or to hide the lack of a timer - and Jemma was no longer looked at like a kicked puppy everywhere she went.

“Fourteen,” Will says. He gets up to cross the cave. Likely to give her a hug. Skye did the same, when Jemma told her the story the night they fought Tobias Ford. It’s a common reaction.

“Yes, but I was already at university. It wasn’t as though I was some typical teenage girl, spending her nights sitting at home, staring at her timer.” Not _every_ night, anyway.

“No,” Will says. He squats down in front of her and takes her left hand in his, palm up so the red numbers would be on full display if only she wasn’t wearing the band. “I mean it wasn’t ten years left, it was fourteen.” He pulls the band back to reveal green numbers.

Jemma barely notices him pulling the band over her numb fingers. Green. It’s _green_. The numbers blur in her vision as tears well up in her eyes.

She hiccups wetly and Will wraps her in his arms.

“I’m sorry,” he says into her hair. He says it again and again, sounding worse each time. All she can care about is the green on her wrist. She has her arm wrapped around his neck so she can keep it in sight.

Eventually her vision clears enough that she can make out the date. It’s been the thirteenth of July 2001 (a Friday, as luck would have it) for so long. And now it’s the twenty-second of June 2015.

She pushes Will away and then grabs at his arm so she can see it too. He chuckles and produces his wrist for her to examine. He keeps it covered mostly - with scraps of clothing or jacket sleeves - but none of that was made to block out the light like her black mourning band was and the green glow is hard to miss on a world all in blues and browns. With shaking fingers she unties the rag he has around it today and, of course, the twenty-second of June. She presses a thumb over the exact time. Just after one in the morning.

“How?” she breathes, never so delighted to be confused.

He nudges her over on the cot so he can sit next to her, but leaves his wrist in her lap. “Turns out,” he says, “timers only work if you’re on the same planet as your soulmate. Taylor didn’t have one and Austin’s was already red, but Brubaker’s had been black all his life.”

Jemma winces. There are any number of explanations for a black timer, but typically they mean the bearer has no match. In superstitious circles, it’s considered the worst of luck.

“His turned red the second he came through.” He reaches across her lap to take her hand now. He touches the green numbers almost reverently, his dirty, calloused hands barely ghosting over the flexible plate. “When mine turned green again, I thought I was going crazy.”

“I thought you were _dead_ ,” she says and can feel the tears welling up again.

“I’m sorry,” he says, pulling her to him so he can kiss the crown of her head. “I didn’t know,” he says into her hair.

She nods, accepting his explanation even though her heart is still heavy in her chest. She thought she’d dealt with this pain, moved past it years ago. Turns out, all she’d done was bury it and now, when it turns out it has no cause to exist at all, it demands to be given its due. She cries into his chest, heavy sobs that sharpen the ache in her chest with memories of the bottle breaking and the long trek back and crying, just like this, less than a day ago.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asks, her temple resting against his shoulder.

He drags in a long breath that fills his chest and lifts her up. “I didn’t want you to feel pressured.” His thumb traces the timer on her wrist. “We’re alone here and- and I didn’t want you to feel like you _had_ to.”

“People on Earth sometimes don’t,” she says and, though she hasn’t told him about Fitz’s soulmate, they both know she’s thinking of him.

Will’s free hand sweeps up and down her back. He doesn’t answer.

It must have been frightening for him, to find her here. While she was mourning his passing, has he been taking comfort in the distance, knowing she was safe across the universe?

She presses her palm to his chest and forces herself to face him. Her _soulmate_. Some of that initial joy is seeping back in through the cracks her sorrow left behind. She traces her fingers over the face she thought she’d never know. “You’re alive,” she says, still in awe.

His mouth curves under her thumbs and his beard scratches at her palms. “Yeah. Sorry I scared you.” His eyes drop to their laps. “They wanted people like us, without soulmates or with a lot of time-”

She presses her fingers more firmly to his lips. “Stop.” There will be time for all of that later, time for his apologies and her own sadness to reemerge. She doesn’t want to think about that now anymore than she wants to think about the thing that lives up above. “You’re _alive_ ,” she says again, her hands trailing down his chest as warm, happy tears burn in her eyes. “And you’re mine.” Someone who’s hers, not someone else’s.

He nods, his own eyes bright, and closes the distance between them. Her soulmate kisses her tenderly.

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to shineyma, this might never have gotten finished if she hadn't prompted me "I thought you were dead" for these two.


End file.
